A simmering family dispute involving Tucker Carlson has burst into public view, with claims from an alleged stepsister over inheritance rights and family recognition. According to the Daily Mail, the feud is tied to the Swanson family fortune.
The Daily Mail reported that the multimillionaire former Fox News personality and his heiress stepsister, Dr Roberta “Bo” Hunt, are locked in a nasty dispute over the Swanson TV dinner family fortune, which she contends he is not entitled to.
Tucker’s name appears in court filings requesting $2,414 every month, despite his insistence that he doesn’t want the money.
Read more: Tucker Carlson ‘wrestling’ with his conscience for supporting Trump: ‘I’m sorry’
Five key things to know about the unfolding Carlson family feud.
1. Alleged stepsister challenges family ties. Roberta Hunt claims that she is related to Carlson through family ties and has publicly challenged Carlson’s denial of that relationship.
According to the Daily Mail, Patricia Swanson Carlson, the heiress of the Swanson frozen food company known for its famous 1950s foil-wrapped dinners, is the only biological parent of Roberta Hunt.
In 1979, Patricia got Tucker and his brother Buckley through marriage to their father, Dick Carlson. Hunt, who is a professor in Georgia, told Daily Mail that in the 1970s and 1980s, she grew up with Tucker in California after the marriage.
According to reports, Hunt has cited photographs and shared history as evidence. Hunt shared photos of her and the Carlson siblings together, with their kids, as recently as 2010.
2. Hunt was not treated well by Tucker siblings and their father, Dick. Hunt talked about having a difficult upbringing with Tucker and his brother Buckley, where she was treated like “an afterthought.”
According to Hunt, the animosity reached a breaking point in 2023 when Dick reportedly did not inform her that her mother had suffered a stroke.
Hunt told the outlet that as her mother was dying in 2023, things became so terrible that Tucker’s father and brother wouldn’t tell her which hospital she was in.
Patricia stated that Tucker’s father would not disclose the location of Patricia’s hospital stay. Hunt claimed that to find out, she had to hire a private investigator.
She stated that Dick also refused to arrange the funeral for a day other than her daughter’s graduation, so she had to bid her mother farewell in the mortuary when she passed away a few days later.
3. Tucker denied knowing Hunt. Tucker, however, declined Hunt’s claims by saying, “I’ve had no contact with this person in more than 30 years,’ he added, claiming he last saw her in the 1980s. I don’t know who this person is really.”
He told the outlet that Hunt is “bonkers” and denied any knowledge of the legal issues.
Additionally, Tucker makes no mention of her in any of the 1,000+ hours of interviews he conducted for his 2023 biography, the 2025 obituary he wrote about his father’s survivors, or the two-hour podcast conversation he had with his brother about their early years.
Read more: Trump v Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Alex Jones: What POTUS said
4. Hunt filed a lawsuit after the withdrawal of thousands of dollars from her late mother’s trust. In September 2024, Hunt filed a lawsuit in Omaha, Nebraska, claiming that Tucker and his brother Buckley had a “illegitimate claim” to the Swanson fortune.
Hunt stated that Patricia and Buckley had asked her and her cousins to sign documents confirming the Carlsons’ inclusion in the Swanson grandchildren’s trusts in the years preceding her mother’s passing.
According to the Daily Mail, the core of Hunt’s case against Carlson is a sibling clash about less than $2,500 a month.
5. Swanson’s fortune is only reserved for “blood descendants.” In a 2024 lawsuit, Hunt alleged that since her mother died in 2023, Tucker and his brother Buckley have unlawfully received a total of $21,727 each from her mother’s trust. She further claimed that her grandfather’s document states that the money should only go to blood descendants of the Swanson line, not adoptees.
The Daily Mail cited the 2024 lawsuit by Hunt that detailed that Patricia’s father established a trust that stated Swanson’s wealth could only be transferred to grandkids “born in lawful wedlock” after forcing his daughter to give the family lawyers control over her inheritance after she revealed she secretly got married to her first husband, Howard Feldman.
